Burr Tillstrom: The Gay Puppeteer of 1950s Children's Television

Before The Cartoon Network, before Sesame Street, even before The Mickey Mouse Club, in the earliest days of television, kids (and adults) rushed home every afternoon to see the adventures of Kukla, Fran, and Ollie, two puppets and their human host.  They may never have realized that there was a hunky 30-year old man behind the set, manipulating the puppets and providing their voices.

They certainly never knew that he was gay.

Born in 1917, Burr Tillstrom began the art of puppetry in college, and created the perpetually-surprised Kukla in 1936. Other characters followed, but it was the laconic Ollie (Oliver J. Dragon) who became the clown in the comedy team, a formula that extended from Laurel & Hardy to Martin & Lewis, Abbott & Costello, and in children's tv, Rocky & Bullwinkle.

In 1947, he teamed up with the vivacious Fran Allison (1907-1989), and they began the Kukla, Fran, and Ollie tv series, a daily half hour (later diminished to fifteen minutes) on Chicago's WGN.

Themes and storylines were compelling, and not necessarily for kids. They performed mysteries, science fiction, and even the Gilbert & Sullivan operetta The Mikado, with Kukla as Nanki-Poo, Ollie as Ko-Ko, and Fran as Yum-Yum.

The program drew many adult fans, including Orson Welles, John Steinbeck, Lillian Gish, James Thurber, Judy Garland,  Talulah Bankhead, and Broadway composer Stephen Sondheim, who wrote Kukla and Ollie a song, "The Two of You."

 During the tv season, Tillstrom lived in Chicago, in an old coach house that he remodeled with the help of his partner, Joseph Lockwood Jr. (left), also the stage manager and the costume designer.  They spent the summers in Europe or in the gay resort of Saugatuk, Michigan

After the program ended in 1957, Tillstrom and Allison continued to perform with the Kuklapolitan players.  They starred in a Broadway show, appeared in Side by Side with Sondheim, hosted the CBS Children's Film Festival, and appeared live at the Goodman Theater in Chicago every Christmas.

Tillstrom died in 1985, before gay identity was regularly acknowledged, so his New York Times obituary and his Wikipedia entry both keep him closeted.  But the gay communities of Chicago and Saugatuck knew.  In 2013 he was inducted in to the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame.

By the way, gay people seem particularly drawn to puppeteering, perhaps because they often live in a world of masks. 

"Raising Dion": Gay kid with superpowers and his Scoobies fight monsters, deal with a helicopter mom

 

There are lots of movie and tv shows about teenagers discovering that they have superpowers, but not many about eigh-year olds. In Raising Dion, single mom Nicole must deal with her own problems and her son's superpowers, which draw the attention of the usual medical specialists, dark-government agencies, and monstrous supervillains.  Gavin Munn plays Dion's best bud.  To see if they have a gay-subtext relationship,  I reviewed Episode 2.2, about a new boy in school, figuring that this was the episode where Gavin first appears.

Link to the NSFW review

Prelude: Mom and Dion off a giant smokey monster in naked human form.  So far, so good.  The monster leaves, and a guy named Pat (Jason Ritter, left) is left (fully clothed).  He explains: "It took a whole day for my body to completely reform, and another to walk to the nearest town, where I decided to start a new life."

Scene 1: Zoom out: he's being interrogated, claiming that he did unspeakable things because the Crooked Man was controlling him.  And now it is controlling someone else!  Big Boss Suzanne doesn't believe him.

Scene 2: Guys in Hazmat suits investigating a giant crater.  There are footprints down there -- maybe the security guard. They call him to check, but he's at home with a disgusting pustulating growth on his neck.  They block off the crater so no school kids fall in.

At that moment, Mom and Dion (Ja'siah Young) drive past. Dion, now ten years old, is troubled, but Mom tells him that there is nothing to worry about.  He praises his superpower trainer, Tevin (Rome Flynn, top photo). Mom says "I'm glad you like him."  Next subject of conversation: the upcoming musical, which Esperanza is counting on him for.  Does Dion have a girlfriend?  TV writers are hesitant about portraying gay pre-teens or even teenagers, but they'll happily have toddlers expressing heterosexual desire.

Scene 3: At school, Dion is drawing in the abs on a muscular superhero.  Questioned by his friend Jonathan (Gavin Munn, already a regular), he claims that they are power stabilizers to help him go faster.  "Um...ok," Gavin says, rather obviously pretending not to know that Dion is gay.  I'd better take another peek at Dion's interest in his superpower trianer.

Their third friend Esperanza (Sammi Haney), who has a unique body type and uses a wheelchair, wants to know when they're going to investigate the mysterious crater. How about today after school?  Next, she has picked out the songs they're going to use for their auditions for the school musical.  BFF Jonathan says there's no need: he has his song picked out, and it's going to be awesome!

During class, the new kid Brayden (Griffin Robert Faulkner) keeps glaring at Dion. 

The full review, with nude photos of the adult men, is on Righteous Gemstones Beefcake and Boyfriends.

"Proper Gym Etiquette": Robert Oberst tells you the gym rules, and demonstrates the punishment for breaking them

In 2015, Robert Oberst wrote and starred in Proper Gym Etiquette, a six minute comedy video directed by Charlie Rice. I would definitely like to show it to some of the guys at my gym.

Link to NSFW version

The premise: If you see a breach of etiquette, you can call for The Monster (Robert), who grabs, throws, pummels, and yells at the offender. (The examples are all g-rated; I added the nudes to the NSFW version, and a few of my own rules).

1. Keep the noise down!  Don't you hate those loud grunts?

2. Re-rack your weights!  It's really annoying to have to rack somebody else's before you can put yours on.

3. No food in the gym!  Who wants to lift while sitting in someone's Dorito crumbs?

4. No curling in the squat bars!  What if somebody is waiting to use the equipment properly?

5. No groups taking turns on a machine!  A workout partner is fine, but wants to wait 20 minutes while four guys go through their sets?

More after the break

The Sonic Drive-In Guys Are Saving a Gay Kid's Life

These are the Two Guys (their internet name) who have been starring in commercials for Sonic Drive-Ins since 2002 (with a few breaks).

They are depicted sitting in their car at various times of the day and night, various months of the year, discussing hamburgers, chicken sandwiches, corn dogs, tater tots, or ice cream concoctions. Occasionally they get out of the car.

Their patter, mostly improv, is reminiscent of the classic comedy duos such as Abott and Costello and Martin and Lewis:  the clown, played by T. J. Jagodowski (left), says something ridiculous or wears an outrageous costume, and straight man Peter Grosz (right) reacts with grumpy dismissal.

And now I'm going to say something.  Listen carefully:

They are a gay couple.

They always eat out together.  They apparently live together.  They share finances.  They mention that they've been together for many years.  They don't refer to any other relationships, or display any interest in women.

Let the screaming begin.

Screamer #1:  Why can't they be friends?  Every time two guys appear together, they aren't gay!  Straight guys go to restaurants together!

Translation:  If there is any possibility, however unlikely, that a fictional character can be read as straight, he MUST be read as straight.  We will accept characters as gay only if there is no other choice, only if our desperate attempts to read them as straight have failed.

But you can do it the other way, too.  It's how gay people survived growing up in a world that denied their existence a hundred times a day, watching tv and going to movies that shouted, over and over, that "boy meets girl is universal human experience!"  They found a fictional character and looked for evidence that would support a gay reading. 

Two guys who go to a restaurant together could be gay.

Screamer #2:  What about when they settle a disagreement with a game of Horse (basketball)? They like sports!  They can't be gay!

Translation: Gay characters must be swishy stereotypes.  The slightest reference to a masculine-coded activity requires us to read them as straight.

But gay guys play basketball.

Screamer #3: What about when T. J. mentions his ex-girlfriend Janine?  He dated a girl!  He's straight.

Translation: The slightest reference to heterosexual behavior requires us to read the character as straight.

But lots of gay men date women before they come out.  They're bowing to societal pressure, the constant "what girl do you like?" litany of high school and college.  Remember this exchange:

T. J.: The last time we ate this good, we were in college.

Peter: No, I was in college, you were in denial.

He's not in denial anymore, he's come out.

Screamer #4: What about the commercial where Jane Krakowski and Ellie Kemper, the stars of The Unbreakable Kimmie Schmidt (not in character) wave at them, and they wave back.  They wave at women!  They must be straight!  

Translation:  Women are invisible to gay men, so any man who displays the slightest recognition of a woman, who says hello to a woman, who steps out of the way to avoid being plowed into by a woman, must be heterosexual.

But gay men are perfectly capable of seeing women, and of waving at famous tv stars, without being romantically interested in them.


Screamer #5:  Ok, now I've got you.  Peter Grosz is married to a woman, Debra Downing, and has a son!  Talk you way out of that one!

Translation: Heterosexuals are incapable of playing gay characters, so if the actor is straight, the character is straight.

But heterosexuals are perfectly capable of playing all sorts of characters, including gay people.

Besides, T. J. Jadodowski never mentions a wife or girlfriend in any interview.  But he does mention going on a trip to Italy with a male friend.

Screamer #6: What about when T. J. is pretending to be a car, and says "I'm going to go talk to her -- the little red coupe with the nice taillights."  He's going to flirt with a female car.  No gay guy would do that!

Translation: Gay men are incapable of playing heterosexuals, so if your character is straight, you must be straight.

But gay actors are perfectly capable of playing all sorts of characters, including straight people.  And straight cars.

There is no piece of evidence that will unequivocally "prove" that a character is gay or straight.  The signs are incomplete, open to interpretation.  All we know about these guys is what they say and do for a few moments in their car at a Sonic Drive-In.  We have to fill in the rest of their lives.

And it's ok to fill it in with a same-sex romance.

Many gay kids are still growing up in a society that denies their existence.  A Sonic Drive-In commercial starring the Two Guys may be trivial to us, but to them it could make all the difference.  It might be the one moment that gives them hope.